With a few notable exceptions, such as Susan Rice at Lloyds TSB and Irene Grant, HSBC's head of Scotland Corporate, corporate banking is still largely male dominated.

But as one woman among four men at the top of Barclays' corporate team in Scotland, Alison McGregor rarely notices she's the odd one out.

"I've been in a number of situations where people have commented I'm the only woman there and I haven't noticed it," says McGregor.

She does admit that "it might be handy" if she played golf. "But I just don't have the time to play," says McGregor, who figures that for most finance directors and chief executives it's more work than playtime these days.

"Maybe when I've got grey hair I'll think about taking it up."

She says her social life revolves around watching her 14-year-old son play football and rugby. Her husband is a firefighter, whose four days on, four off shift means he's around to help with childcare.

Despite measuring her spare time out with teaspoons, last year McGregor became a BoobyBird - one of a group of women who joined together to raise £400,000 for breast cancer-related charities in Scotland.

The fundraisers also had to do a tandem skydive to prove their commitment.

"Then I got to the bit where it said you had to raise £20,000. All of a sudden I thought that is more scary to me than jumping out of a plane."

Yet she was buoyed when she found her early attempts at fundraising were hugely successful.

"I thought I'd just write to a few of my corporate clients and say to them I'm thinking about doing this. I just kept getting cheques back. I must have got £12,000 from my clients before I even lifted a finger.

"But with every cheque I got there was a story. The whisky industry,in particular Edrington, Chivas and Whyte and McKay, were huge supporters of what I was doing."